Scott Joplin's Treemonisha [Original Cast Recording] [CAST RECORDING]

Willard White (Performer), Scott Joplin (Composer), Gunther Schuller (Conductor, Orchestra), Houston Grand Opera Orchestra & Chorus (Orchestra), Ben Harney (Performer), Betty Allen (Performer), Carmen Balthrop (Performer), Cora Johnson (Performer), Curtis Rayam (Performer), Dorceal Duckens (Performer), Dwight Ransom (Performer), Edward Pierson (Performer), Kenneth Hicks (Performer), Raymond Bazemore (Performer)

Product Details

• Performer: Willard White, Ben Harney, Betty Allen, Carmen Balthrop, Cora Johnson, et al.
• Orchestra: Gunther Schuller, Houston Grand Opera Orchestra & Chorus
• Conductor: Gunther Schuller
• Composer: Scott Joplin
• Audio CD (September 15, 1992)
• SPARS Code: ADD
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Cast Recording
• Label: Deutsche Grammophon
• ASIN: B000001GGD
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #106,416 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Joplin (ca. 1868-1917), whose fame as a composer had skyrocketed in the 1960s and '70s as a result of the "rediscovery" of his rags by Gunther Schuller, Joshua Rifkin, and others, poured his heart and soul into this tale of black sharecroppers and their struggle against ignorance and superstition in late-19th-century Arkansas. Yet he was never able to get the work staged in his lifetime. This recording comes from Treemonisha's belated full-scale staging at Houston Grand Opera in 1975, with a splendid cast headed by Carmen Balthrop, Betty Allen, Curtis Rayam, and Willard White, directed by Frank Corsaro and conducted by Gunther Schuller (who provided the arrangements and the scoring). Joplin's tuneful score is a lively mix of ragtime, minstrel show, vaudeville, grand opera, Wagner, Verdi, and Offenbach, with lots of dancing, a big role for the chorus, and arias and ensembles of affecting simplicity and beauty. Schuller gets an impressively crisp performance from the orchestra, a Dixieland band with added strings and winds, and paces the performance to perfection--for fun, just listen to the Act II-ending chorus "Aunt Dinah has blowed the horn." The recording sounds as fresh and bright as the inspiration that speaks from every page of this all-American score. --Ted Libbey

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Treemonisha is unique, November 16, 2004

By	E. G. Jones (Auckland, New Zealand) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I already have the Houston Treemonisha on vinyl but after sixteen years it is likely to deteriorate so I bought the CD too.

Treemonisha is not grand opera in the traditional sense; it is not a ragtime opera; it isn't this, that or the other thing. It is itself, uniquely beautiful, profoundly moving and probably a work of genius. Surely we, as music lovers of the world, have matured beyond the compulsion to place every piece of music in a defining category. Some criticisms of Treemonisha I have read are little less absurd than admonishing the player of an Indian raga for not modulating according to sonata form. The disease is a product of too much learning and sadly afflicts talented professionals even more commonly than it does the man in the street.

The forces behind Treemonisha are very eloquently explained in the liner notes, and need no further elaboration. The love and regard for the music by those producing and performing it is abundantly obvious. The technical quality of the recording is excellent and the notes provide even the most naive listener (and Treemonisha is superbly naive in the best sense of the word) with everything necessary in the way of background.

A review cannot influence a prejudiced mind. This work, if any, is a prime candidate for Debussy's maxim - just listen, it is enough.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An overlooked 20th century masterpice., August 30, 1999

By	Douglas Milburn (Houston) - See all my reviews

Ignore the elitist condescension and musicological nit-picking in the Gramophone review above. Treemonisha waited 60 years for its first professional performance, by Houston Grand Opera in 1975. Apparently it's going to have to wait another 60 years for proper recognition of its remakrable music. And the music _is_ the thing. Sure, the plot is simplistic, the characters are two-dimensional... but then that's true of many an opera, yes? The music, the music. Gunther Schuller's vivid period orchestration provides a solid foundation for a fine group of singers and an outstanding chorus. What is alas necessarily msising from the CD is the dancing. Rags were _dance_ music. And what carried the HGO production from the fine to the sublime was the dancing. A commercial video of the original HGO production was released on Sony which caught a great deal of the celebratory energy released by the dancers. --Douglas Milburn

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars All that Joplin wanted was for it to be recognised, August 21, 1999

By A Customer

Throughout Joplin's short 49 year long life, all he wanted to do was put forward the seriousness of ragtime, such an effect was achieved in his great ragtime opera "Treemonisha", but it was never recognised during his lifetime. With the re-emergence of ragtime in the 1970's Joplin's music and its sometimes elusive melancholic power came through, inspiring this great recording. Carmen Balthrop and Betty Allen are superb, and the recording from the orchestra is first class. Joplin's goal on writing this opera was to mix ragtime with opera to show that it could be just as "serious" as others. It is fair to say that Joplin's attempt, as a ragtime writer and not an opera writer is impressive and admirable, just as noone would expect an opera master like Puccini or Verdi to write ragtime.